Ken Segall doesn’t mince words when it comes to talking about his previous employer. The former Apple ad man has a track record of calling it like he sees on his ‘Observatory’ blog, where he’s talked about everything from the iPhone’s name, to the successfulness of Samsung.

In his latest blog post, Segall attempts to explain why the iPhone 5c has been such a failure. Apple hasn’t come out and said it, obviously, but there’s been quite a bit of evidence suggesting the handset hasn’t performed as well as it hoped. And Ken has a few possible reasons why… Read More

Apple’s late co-founder was never fond of die-hard creative professionals and wanted to walk away from that niche market segment in order to focus solely on the high-end consumer segment which appealed more to him and didn’t eat up major resources. In fact, it didn’t just cross Steve’s mind to kiss the pro market good-bye.

He was actually considering dropping Apple products for the pros altogether, says Apple’s former ad consultant Ken Segall, the guy who dreamed up the iMac name and revealed the iPhone could have been easily called the ‘Telepod’… Read More

Former ad man and longtime Apple consultant Ken Segall has been very critical of his old company in recent months. And he continues that trend with a new blog post called ‘iPhone naming: when simple gets complicated.’

In the post, Segall argues that Apple screwed up the way it names its handsets—particularly on the ‘S’ models. He says that iPhones marked with an ‘S’ not only look awkward, but also send a weak message to consumers… Read More

Former Apple ad man and creator of the famous ‘Think Different’ campaign Ken Segall has been garnering a lot of headlines in the Cupertino blogosphere lately. Last week, he published a blog post on why Samsung’s anti-Apple marketing has been so effective.

And this week he was spotted at an event for the University of Arizona’s Marketing Department, again talking about his former employer. Among other tidbits, Segall divulged that Apple considered some silly names for its smartphone before calling it iPhone… Read More

Apple, the world’s greatest marketing machine, is no longer untouchable. That’s the sentiment shared by Ken Segall, the former creative director at advertising firm TBWAChiatDay, the guy who came up with the name “iMac” and worked alongside Steve Jobs on Apple’s famous Think Different campaign. In a post over at his personal blog, Segall opined that Samsung’s commercials are getting the best out of Apple and he offers two reasons why that’s the case… Read More

Apple commands cult-like following and rivals like Samsung and Motorola (Verizon, too, in its pre-iPhone days) were quick to isolate Apple’s core base as both its biggest advantage and a major PR vulnerability. If you believe a series of anti-Apple ads by Samsung, people who stand in the line for a new iPhone are weirdos collectively known as iSheep.

These ads play to the widely accepted notion that die-hard Apple lovers are fanatics. Just ask Mac consultant and FileMaker Pro developer Scott Rose, the brains behind a pair of clips conveniently titled “Shit Apple fanboys say” (here and here).

The funny videos that rationalize on Apple’s behalf blew up in no time and became a trending topic on social media sites, racking up nearly a million views on YouTube in just a couple days, here’s how he went about doing them… Read More

Ken Segall is the guy who dreamed up the iMac name and one of Steve Jobs’s most-trusted ad men who advised Apple’s late mercurial CEO on advertising concepts since the NeXT days, which includes work on the famous Think Different campaign. Segall is also the author of Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success, a book on Apple that focuses on the company’s Simplicity mantra.

Segall sat with TIME’s Editor-at-large Harry McCracken to talk for more than an hour about the ingredients that made Apple such a success, the company’s DNA, leadership tips, marketing, advertising and much more… Read More